8/8/18

The Real Reason Why I Stopped Maximizing My Income

As you probably know by now, I graduated college, moved back in with my parents, mowed lawns, and delivered ice some Sundays and holidays. My salary at the time was plenty to cover my $0 rent and other expenses (mainly beer), but I was focused on my goal to pay off my student loans ASAP.

I paid off my loans in a year and a half, moved out of the basement, and stopped the side jobs. Doesn't that go against what a personal finance influencer is supposed to advocate for? 😨 Aren't I supposed to squeeze every penny out of every single day and tell you how mowing lawns and delivering ice can change your life?

The fact of the matter is that mowing lawns and delivering ice can definitely change people's lives. It can if you're in some serious debt or struggling to make ends meet or just fired up about getting some extra cash. I'm extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to have those jobs which allowed me to pay off my loans so quickly and have a little fun along the way.

But at this point, I have the luxury to thing bigger picture. Sure, I wouldn't mind a few extra bucks here and there, but I would honestly probably just end up mostly spending it on more beer which would render my healthy lifestyle improvements useless.

Almost every minute I spent on the ice truck or behind the mower when I wasn't listening to the Tribe (and sometimes zoning out of even the Tribe game), I was thinking about building businesses.

It's something I talked about my whole life and something I had even begun to work toward with Smart Money Seed and 9vnow. Ideas would come and go for new businesses, ways to improve the projects I was working on, and what my next move should be. The inability to take immediate action on my thoughts drove me crazy.

Losing time out of my week chasing a few bucks that I could've spent learning about and building businesses to maximize my progress on my long term goal of becoming an entrepreneur just didn't seem to make sense anymore.

The reason I stopped maximizing my income is the same exact reason why I started. I wanted to go all in on my goals. Just like I was all in on my goal of paying off my student loans. And I needed to tailor my life to allow myself to completely buy in to my vision just like I did when I moved back home.

I'm not certain if I've made the correct decision. I likely won't know that for many years. I do know that I enjoy the hell out of building Smart Money Seed and all the highs and even the lows that come with it. I love interacting with entrepreneurs through our interviews and now dabbling in helping them with Facebook marketing.

I'm incredibly grateful to be able to focus on my long term goals and working toward my dream life that I hope to live in the next 5 years and not just the next 5 months. Not everybody has that luxury. I intend to take advantage of the opportunity in front of me to set myself up for levels of success I currently can only dream of.

If you could see some life changing benefits with a few extra bucks, check out my post 4 Ways To Beef Up Your Income, And How I've Used All 4.
If you're in a position to be able to focus more on your long-term goals, I want to hear from you. Leave us a comment or message us on Facebook and tell us what you're working toward and how you're designing your life to go all-in on your goals.

Maybe the Smart Money Squad will be able to hold you accountable and give you that extra push you need to get fired up about achieving exactly what you want.